Parties, presents, and family togetherness aren’t the only reasons to (ostensibly) look forward to the holidays. Especially at the end of a year like the one we just survived, they give us the much-needed opportunity to slow down and take stock before we rip open a new calendar. As December progresses and publications run their annual best-of lists, the sectors of the entertainment industry that aren’t angling for Oscar consideration go into seasonal hibernation. Album and book releases taper off, TV shows go on hiatus, and the combination of relative quiet on the cultural front and downtime between Christmas and New Year’s makes these few weeks perfect for catching up on everything we missed during the past 12 months.
From the visual album’s evolution into a full-fledged art form to inspired pairings of director and documentary subject, this has been an exceptional year for music on film. The highlight was Beyoncé’s Lemonade, a unique marriage of pop songs and experimental filmmaking that was both Pitchfork’s third-favorite album and number one video of 2016. (If you’ve somehow managed to miss the full, audiovisual work in the eight months since its HBO premiere, there has never been a better reason to sign up for that free, 30-day Tidal trial.) But if you’ve already experienced Lemonade and are looking to spend the holidays with some of the year’s best rock docs and music-themed indies, here’s a few great options to stream via subscription services and the like (plus one digital rental that’s well worth your $5).
Green Room (Amazon Prime)
Born out of anger, nihilism, and a compulsion to scream away the aesthetic excesses rock had piled on in the early ’70s, punk has always appealed to the anarchist left as well as the fascist right. (Founding punks’ appropriation of swastikas as shallow signifiers of iconoclasm certainly didn’t help.) Green Room exploits that binary by bringing a broke, desperate DIY band into a neo-Nazi clubhouse for a gig that makes them uncomfortable, but pays well enough to keep them on the road. Everything goes smoothly until a certain Dead Kennedys cover and a stroke of terrible luck put the crusty Ain’t Rights in the skinheads’ crosshairs, catalyzing a siege storyline that’s as tense as it is simple. There’s an obvious and depressing resonance to this setup in 2016. But Green Room is also worth watching for excellent performances by Alia Shawkat, Imogen Poots, Anton Yelchin (in one of his final roles), and Patrick Stewart as a white supremacist ringleader whose preternatural calm is his most terrifying trait.
Presenting Princess Shaw (Netflix)
Presenting Princess Shaw opens with a glamorous evening at the Guggenheim, where the Israeli musician and video artist Kutiman serenades trendy Manhattanites with a symphony he crafted out of found YouTube clips. But the true subject of Ido Haar’s documentary, Princess Shaw, comes from a very different world. The New Orleans nurse’s assistant, known to her friends and family as Samantha Montgomery, struggles to keep her lights on and heal the wounds of a traumatic childhood while auditioning for “The Voice,” performing to empty venues and uploading videos of herself belting out originals. When Kutiman puts her vocals at the center of a new project without asking permission, the story becomes both an example of well-intentioned cross-cultural exchange and yet another instance of a successful, white artist blithely capitalizing on the work of a poor, black one. (Although the two did eventually meet, collaborate, and express their mutual admiration, a recent interview revealed that Montgomery hadn’t yet quit her day job.) Haar’s lack of interest in challenging Kutiman’s approach is the film’s biggest flaw, but its greatest asset—Princess Shaw herself—make it essential viewing.
Sing Street (Netflix)
Irish director John Carney made his name with 2007’s Once, a musical love story bittersweet enough to win over contemporary audiences. But even viewers cold-hearted enough to find that film a bit too sappy (like me) might enjoy his latest release (as I did). Sing Street’s premise isn’t groundbreaking: teenage outcasts start a band in 1980s Dublin. It’s the period details Carney clearly imports from his own youth that make it so endearing—precocious protagonist Conor’s (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) flimsy attempts to mimic Robert Smith and Simon Le Bon, his insistence on labeling his band “futurist,” the way his whole family gathers around the TV to watch Duran Duran’s “Rio” video on “Top of the Pops.” Conor’s dropout older brother (Jack Reynor) may be film’s funniest music snob since High Fidelity. There’s a sweet first-love storyline, too, if you don’t mind a whiff of male fantasy, but the real romance here is between a charismatic misfit and the music that helps him realize that weirdness is his gift.
Mavis! (HBO Go and HBO Now)
“That’s not a little girl,” Mavis Staples recalls listeners insisting the first time they heard her impossibly strong, deep voice on the radio, when she was only 13. “That’s got to be a man or a big, fat woman.” Those one-of-a-kind pipes took her family’s gospel band, the Staples Singers, from church to Stax Records superstardom—and made Mavis a soul icon in her own right. There’s nothing fancy about director Jessica Edwards’ film, but what sets Mavis! apart from similar projects is its concision, distilling one of music’s most impressively lengthy careers to a satisfying 80 minutes. Edwards knows exactly which parts of her subject’s story to highlight, from the Staples Singers’ early embrace of the Civil Rights Movement to Mavis’ 21st-century comeback. Perhaps most fascinating of all is the singer’s relationship with her beloved, late father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, the band’s mastermind and a rare “stage parent” who was actually a force for good in his children’s lives.
The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead (Amazon Prime)
The Damned were the first British punks out of the gate, their debut single “New Rose” beating the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.” to record stores by just over a month. But owing to some combination of internal strife, lack of business savvy, and thirst for experimentation, they’ve fought their way through 40 years of on-and-off existence as eternal bridesmaids. Wes Orshoski’s documentary traces this long and sometimes heartbreaking history, from the Damned’s first breakup in 1977 to the many reunions that followed, each involving a different mix of original and new members (including Lemmy). At nearly two hours, the film may be a bit too long and loose for non-fans. But The Damned is worth watching for its insights into the strong personalities that catalyzed punk’s first wave. It’s especially thrilling to watch the band pick apart their famously aloof singer, Dave Vanian, who keeps Orshoski’s camera at arm’s length. “I don’t wanna slag the bloke off,” Sensible says, about a man he’s known for four decades. “He seems great.”
Miss Sharon Jones! (Rent on Amazon, YouTube, or Google Play)
Sharon Jones’ career was defined by persistence. By the time she rose to latter-day soul renown in the early aughts, she was in her 40s and had overcome decades of cruel rejection by a music industry whose racism, sexism, and superficiality had prevented it from acknowledging her obvious talents. So, when Jones was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in 2013, no one doubted that she’d keep singing for as long as she was able. As she underwent aggressive treatment, the singer allowed director Barbara Kopple to document her chemo appointments, convalescence, and attempts to pull herself together for the sake of bandmates who couldn’t make ends meet without touring. The resulting film is a portrait of tenacity that transcended any rags-to-riches tale the publicity-industrial complex could manufacture. Beyond the magic she achieved onstage, Jones inspired fierce devotion from her friends and colleagues; a scene where an assistant breaks down at the sudden realization that her boss might not make it is crushing, even more so now.
“Documentary Now” Episode “Final Transmission” (IFC.com, free with cable login)
Sure, Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s “Documentary Now” airs on television, but it’s really an anthology of short-film spoofs of famous documentaries, created by comedians who also happen to be music geeks. In October, the show bested its hilarious riff on History of the Eagles with “Final Transmission,” a note-perfect parody of Jonathan Demme’s legendary Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. The episode features an album’s worth of original songs by Armisen and Hader’s fictional art-rock band, Test Pattern. (Former Heads drummer Chris Frantz’s review: “These lyrics are better than David Byrne’s.”) And although it diverges from the obsessively stage-focused original by cutting in interviews that slyly poke fun at the tensions within the band, “Final Transmission” will win over purists with its astonishingly detailed recreations of Demme’s performance footage. Maya Rudolph’s guest appearance, as the Tina Weymouth to Armisen’s jittery Byrne, elevates the whole farewell concert from clever to sublime.